Letter to the Editor
February 7, 2026
Before I begin making my case for why Donald Trump should be considered a dictator, I feel the need to qualify my remarks due to the length constraints I am under. I do not have the luxury of sifting through multiple examples of how Trump has consolidated executive power in each area. Nor do I have the space to get into the ramifications of his administration’s actions on our democracy or well-being.
Amnesty International, an organization that has for decades documented human rights abuses and the patterns followed by authoritarian regimes, recently issued a report titled Ringing the Alarm Bells: Rising Authoritarian Practices and the Erosion of Human Rights in the US.
The report details 12 interlocking areas in which the president is “cracking the pillars of a free society”. These areas are common across authoritarian regimes and include the consolidation of government power, control of information, the discrediting or silencing of critics, punishment of dissent, the closure of civic space, and the weakening of mechanisms that ensure accountability.
The first alarm bell the report lists is: Press freedom and access to information are being undermined. Independent journalism and freedom of the press are critical to the public’s ability to expose abuses, hold the powerful accountable, make informed decisions, and challenge abuse and corruption. By conditioning access to government information with speech-chilling terms, verbally attacking journalists, withdrawing security clearances, and threatening funding, the Trump administration reshaped press oversight of the government, allowing it to control the message and discouraging critical reporting.
Alarm bell two pertains to the punishment of speech and protest. Freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are human rights that people rely on to defend their other rights. When authorities use surveillance, arrest, administrative punishment, and the military to make protest and dissent feel dangerous, it is a classic sign of authoritarian practices. Neutralizing opposition is an authoritarian practice designed to evade accountability for violating rights and breaking the law. In 2025, the Trump administration targeted foreign-born students protesting the Israeli government’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, and people protesting and monitoring the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement actions.
Alarm bell three concerns civil society and universities being coerced to narrow civic space. Civil society organizations and universities form part of the key infrastructure of civic space, where people organize, debate, and hold power to account. Like other such regimes, Trump’s has used funding threats, threats to legal status, and “security” narratives to force compliance. By labeling tax-exempt organizations and their funders that oppose the president’s policies as terrorists, he seeks to dismantle any opposition. By withdrawing federal contracts and threatening their tax-exempt
status and endowments, Trump is attempting to exert control over who they hire and admit, and what they teach.
Alarm bell four involves the normalization of retaliation against critics and whistleblowers. A hallmark of authoritarian practice is using the government to punish, intimidate, and coerce critics to compel speech and action in line with government agendas, to deter oversight. Political threats and retribution pressure individuals and institutions to fall in line. The Trump administration has retaliated against targets through firings, suspensions, investigations, and the revocation of security clearances in an attempt to roll back diversity initiatives and other policies he doesn’t like. Trump’s efforts to weaponize the Department of Justice to bring legal charges against Letitia James and James Comey are two good examples.
Alarm bell five concerns Trump’s efforts to target judges, lawyers, and the legal system to weaken the rule of law. The rule of law depends on courts that can check executive power and lawyers who can represent clients without intimidation, ensuring that everyone is treated equally under the law and no one is above the law. Through executive action and policy measures, the Trump administration took steps that constrained the judiciary and the wider legal system.
Alarm bell six is when due process is disregarded, enabling enforced disappearances and illegal expulsions. Under due process guarantees, the state cannot deprive someone of their life or liberty without a fair and efficient process. Enforced disappearance is a grave human rights violation, a serious crime under international law, and inherently denies due process and the right to a fair trial. Individuals must have access to justice, legal recognition, and humane conditions.
The seventh alarm bell occurred when refugee and migrant rights were attacked. Cruelty became policy and reality. The scapegoating of refugees and migrants justifies abusive enforcement, normalizes cruelty, and expands detention systems that operate with minimal transparency, creating a platform for mass human rights violations and a testing ground for increased crackdown on the broader population. Accelerated mass detention and deportation terrorize communities and create a dehumanizing narrative. Enforcement near and within spaces that people depend on for safety and services chills daily life: Families avoid school, health care and basic services out of fear.
Alarm bell eight: militarization becomes the “new normal” in domestic enforcement. Military forces and militarized operations are not appropriate for domestic law enforcement. Law enforcement that is compliant with human rights is based on close relationships between law enforcement officers and the public they serve; built on trust and direct community engagement. Instead of playing a vital role in protecting the rights to life, liberty, and security, law enforcement is increasingly outsourced to military forces. When troops and militarized agents are deployed in communities or protests, the risks of intimidation, excessive force, and suppression of peaceful assembly rise sharply. Military personnel do not have the experience, training, or equipment for crowd control and the policing of protests.
Alarm bell nine involves the turbocharging of surveillance and AI tools, enabling targeting and repression at speed. Privacy is a human right that protects expression, association, and equality among other human rights. When the government deploys AI-driven surveillance tools that enable continuous monitoring, profiling, and rapid targeting, the risk of discriminatory, erroneous, and unchallengeable decisions increases. Without transparency and oversight, AI can empower and accelerate authoritarian practices by expanding the scale and speed of targeting. The Trump administration has used AI-powered surveillance tools to target non-US citizens.
Alarm bell ten is the targeting of populations and anti-discrimination protections. Attacks on gender identity, sexual and reproductive rights, and LGBTI rights and dismantling anti-discrimination measures are used to scapegoat communities, entrench discrimination, and weaponize issues of gender and identity to further divide society and justify human rights abuses. These rollbacks strip protections, restrict bodily autonomy, increase the risk of harm, and signal that the government will treat some people’s rights as negotiable. The Trump administration significantly rolled back sexual and reproductive rights, rescinded prior policies that helped expand and protect access to reproductive care, and cut funding for reproductive facilities and programs. The Trump administration has also attacked LGBTI rights and care, particularly of transgender people.
Alarm bell eleven addresses checks on corporate accountability and efforts to combat corruption. Pulling back oversight of corporations and public officials erodes transparency and accountability, threatening a government’s ability to uphold human rights. President Trump and his administration moved quickly to dismantle existing checks on corporate accountability and slashed efforts to combat corruption. It also cut most of the lawyers in the US Justice Department unit that handles public corruption cases and halted, dropped, or withdrew enforcement actions against more than 160 corporations.
The Trump administration has also undermined systems that support human rights globally, creating greater harm and emboldening greater impunity worldwide.
Sincerely,
Scott Foreman
